How hard do the traps hit on higher difficulties? I've been playing at the default level and they barely even hurt. Those big walls of spikes that swing in feel like they should be killing or almost killing me.

These spike walls insta-kill my warrior on master. Other traps are more forgiving but still lethal if you don't have full hp.

I'm playing on Master difficulty and tried to get hit by the first spike wall in bleak falls barrow intentionally. Well I lived to tell it. :jammasterjay:

I've been getting one-shotted with a variety of traps on Master.

I think the difficulties settings in skyrim only affects the damage you hit others and the damage others hit you. As well as the speech skill requirements for certain speech checks.

Don't think it affects trap damage.

Oh well, guess that's something to mod in and enjoy in another playthrough. I want to experience the sheer terror of hearing the trap go off and watch my character suffer a brutal and agonizing death...

In Master, traps range from low damage (poisoned spike traps), to severe (log, spike wall traps, etc), to one-hit KO (magical traps), and that on a lvl 41 Warrior with 300 HP.

I'm only playing Adept level, but I haven't run across a trap that's more than a minor wound, if I remember right. Of course, I tend to avoid most of them. I'm playing a mighty sword-swinging Nord warrior that pummels his enemies into paste and listens to the lamentation of their wimmins, but he ain't stoopid. I just tiptoe right past the triggers.

its a set damage amount because my low health stealthy mage assassin was instantly killed but my orc berserker with nothing but health and stamina walked away with over half his health. i forgot the levels of my characters so i dont know of the traps increase damage with your level or not. one of the first things im changing on my ever growing list is to make most traps insta kill. its especially weird getting hit by a huge swining axe and only losing a little bit of health. now sure why they made that design decision.

also i deliberately removed the perk that lets you walk over traps without setting them off. one of the best parts of the game is keeping an eye out for them and occasionally missing one and having a WTF moment as something big and heavy comes swinging my way.

overall though im very happy with what they have done. i have a blast doing trap only playthroughs where i only kill the mobs with the in dungeon traps and nothing else. bosses are the exception of course. my favorite aspect is that one a few occasions the npcs actually ran and activated the traps themselves. specifically one time a bandit lady ran down a hallway with me and my follower in tow and she pulle the chain and activated the swinging axes. i was so excited at seeing an npc do that i stopped and proceeded to lose most of my health. it was awesome.

Same here but I think traps shouldn't do more damage because of the difficulty. They're meant to kill not give you papercuts.